A Conversation

"It's my fault,"
"No it's not."
"Get out."
You look the other way, and I can't tell if you're being sarcastic.
"Being utterly serious for me, do you really want me to leave?" I can't gauge your expression. "What did I do?"
"Guess."
"The last thing I did was deny that you were at fault."
"Bingo."
"If I thought everything was your fault, would you be happy?"
"……I can't be that guy."
"What guy?"
"You expect me to be perfect."
"I don't."
"It seems like you do."
"You're not perfect. If you were perfect, I wouldn't like you."
"What?"
"I wouldn't like you."
"Have you ever met someone who you thought was perfect?"

     You. You came in from Spanish III to Spanish II, you were in my honors classes, and you knew multiple programming languages. Well. You knew all those current events, had social skills, and had a means of earning money. You knew what you wanted to do with your life and you       seemed so, so motivated.
     I gave up on being close to you immediately. I knew I wasn't educated enough.
     Then I got to know you better, learned the side of you who wants desperately to improve, to live up, to succeed, the insecure side who constantly needs to progress. Lack of progress stresses you out. Feelings of inadequacy or feeling pressure to live up stresses you out, understandably so, you just feel it more than, say, me. You use wikiHows because you need your thoughts to be able to be backed up, even if with an internet source. You've looked up how to start a relationship, what girls like/don't like (I reviewed that one for you back in September, remember?), and, more recently, how to French kiss. I liked you after I saw that you were not the perfection I thought. I still feel stupid around you, but secure. I feel like if I work hard, someday I can have your work ethic, knowledge, and ability to plan for the future,       which I gave up on after switching trainers the third time. Also I learned that you're fun to kiss.

          …I won't be able to articulate this to you.

"No. I guess I wouldn't know."
     Lies, but the truth would hurt to speak. I don't know why I feel like that but I do. Like pulling rocks from my stomach up my esophagus, I know they have to come out but it'll hurt, and I really really really don't want to bleed at the throat right now.

     Please. Please believe me.

     Please.
     Please.

"Well, there you go."

     All I can do is repeat myself, I guess.
"I don't expect you to be perfect."
     Now I've screwed up. The rocks should have come out.

"Really."
"Really!"
     I can't change course now. Fuck. Fuck. Why can I never tell you what I'm really thinking? What       am I afraid will happen?

Now I have to leave, sans closure. Fuck. We walk up the stairs, to the front door. I pause, look at you.

"What?"
"I don't want to leave on this note. Without proving I don't expect that much of you."
"Don't be sad, be happy."
"I want you to be happy."
"Well then that's not going to work out, is it?"

I keep walking up the stairs. Conversation is fluffy like steel wool. I walk out the door.  Your smile pulls across your face, your good bye is chopped firewood and fish that were a moment ago flopping in the sea and have now been hauled onto a deck, strangled in a net. I wonder how deep that good bye cuts.


The door shuts.